Hippoi Athanatoi

So, I forgot all about posting last week. But that’s okay, I have time to catch up now, since I am not going to the stables at all today. We were supposed to have a clinic tomorrow instead, with our instructors riding for another instructor, but we have a flu in the stables so it has been postponed.

Which means no hippotheraphy fix for me today. At least I can think back on last week and, once again, say “wow, what a horse” about Murphy. Even though it started off a little dodgy in the stables—he was a bit uneasy, even made a squealy sound and threatened with a hind leg—he was once again very happy to be ridden.

After the preparations the week before, we now tackled actual counter-canter. And not as we usually do, by starting regular canter and then doing something to switch which way were going. No, we actually had to ask for counter-canter. A bit daunting when you’re a) on Murphy, b) have sucky co-ordination and c) have a hard time feeling which canter you got.

Did we get the counter-canter every time? No. But, we did get canter every time, with fairly subtle aids and not much delay. And the more times we did it, the more explosive it got. I was able to concentrate on all the other details, such as my seat which ended up being pretty steady all along, instead of worrying about Murphy not taking the aids quickly enough.

We didn’t trot much, so I didn’t really get a chance to feel that lovely trot he gives me when he is in this mood. And even though he transitioned into canter so much better than before, his canter as such is still not exactly great. But, the transitions were enough to make me a very happy girl. The kind of “lift-off” I am getting on him now is so different from anything he has done before. I just wish I knew what’s behind it. If I am doing something very right, I’d like bottle it for future use.

Maybe Murphy is just having a lot of fun. It certainly seemed like it afterwards, as he was so charged up when I led him to the stables that I was expecting him to start snorting and prancing any moment.

I am not sure what they have slipped Murphy in his oats lately, but whatever it is, they should keep doing it. He was just fabulous this Tuesday too. We were supposed to being doing some counter-canter work, but ended up working on preparing for it all lesson, and that gave some amazing results when walking and trotting.

We spent most of the lesson focusing on changing which side was the inner side, regardless which way we were riding, and on making sure that we were handling the turns in corners and on circles appropriately when riding them with the “wrong” side as the inner side. The counter-canter, which will happen next time if all goes according to plans, will be through to two corners, so Ulrika wanted to make sure we had a good feel for how to turn through a corner with the “wrong” inner side. In particular, she wanted to make sure our bodies were doing the right thing.

For me, that’s not an easy task. My co-ordination is about as bad as Murphy’s (we make an excellent couple that way ;P), and my general issues with left and right means that mirroring a movement is tricky for me. But because Murphy was in such good mood, I was able to continue focusing on doing as little as possible, and that worked to my advantage. I did need to adjust my leg position now and then, but overall I just thought about a steady seat. And it worked quite well. Plus, this kind of exercise, where I have to focus on keeping his shoulders in and his hindquarters under control, really makes a difference when it comes to getting him to work. I just have to take that feeling along to all lessons on him.

Still, I don’t think I can take full credit for how hard Murphy was working, though. He really does have bad co-ordination, and doing things the opposite way from how he usually does them is not easy for him, but boy how he worked at it. We had started off just switching inner sides when riding around the arena, and then we moved to riding on two circles and keeping the inside constantly opposite to what it would generally be. It was hard for him, but he just kept at it. He ended up so nicely together, and gave me some excellent walk and trot which I really felt through his whole body.

Tuesday’s lesson, which came after a day spent in hard drive hell (and this post has been delayed by more computer problems, ugh), was a nice break from dealing with a mess but otherwise not terribly useful. I was on Hedvig, and the exercise involved transitions to canter. Hedvig, bred to trot for generations, has some issues with cantering. Such as still need quite a running start to get into it. That wasn’t easy when the exercise involved canter when you came off the last corner on the short end, and then trot at the end of the long end. Plus, along one side, the canter should be counter-canter.

Still, I think I managed to stay pretty steady in my seat and calm in my aids despite failed attempt after failed attempt. And then Hedvig started to really fight with me every time we neared the point where she was supposed to start cantering. At one point, I tried to interfere less and let her do as she wanted, and she sped through the corner and launched into canter right after. She had figured out where I wanted her to canter, and was trying to tell me she needed to start accelerating through the corner. Smart cookie, and A+ for effort on her part.

Other than that, we had some sad news. Gamir, now 20, had be sold into semi-retirement, which he gets to spend with four other old friends from the stables. Well-deserved, but very sad not to have him around. And poor old Fleur will probably be put down. She had been rested for a long while for lameness, and came up lame again as soon as they tried to start her up again. She’s such a sweet girl, poor thing, and I will really miss her too.

For my own part, that means the last two horses I tend to ride will be gone, leaving me with just the ponies; Murphy (okay, so he is technically a horse, if barely), Hedvig and Nelson. Quite worrying, especially as any new additions are likely to continue the trend of being too large. No one breeds reasonably-sized horses any longer, and the stables admittedly tend to go for either ponies or bigger horses, so they can carry a wide range of adult riders.

The lesson this Tuesday was one of those magical moments, or magical 45 minutes. I got to pick between Murphy and Nelson, so of course my special darling won. Nelson was mightily jealous when I was getting Murphy ready, and there was something about Murphy that told me he was in a good mood.

That was proven as soon as I took the reins (and, in fact, even when I was just walking him on a long rein before that, he felt positive), and Murphy promptly started chewing contentedly on the bit and getting in between my legs and hands. I knew I was in for a treat then, because while he can be good when you persuade him that yes, you really do need to work this lesson and not just be a lazy riding school horse, it can’t compare with when he says “oh, work! love it!”.

I am not sure the lesson on Tuesday came out all that great, all considered, since the two things I remember the most are two mildly unfortunate incidents. One was my fault, the other I can only blame Nelson for.

A rather wet week got in the way of our plans of jumping out in the field, since it would have been much too slippery. Too bad, I had really been looking forward to a chance for a bit of lightly eventing-inspired jumping. I haven’t done that since my riding holidays in England and Wales…which now is too many years ago for me to even start counting. It would just make me feel terribly old, not to mention make me crotchety about how long it was since I was on a riding holiday. I really miss them, but at the same time, I am not sure it would feel at all the same now. I want someplace where I get to act like a horse-mad teenager who is really excited to have her “own” horse or pony for a week, and I am not sure there are any places like that who take people older than 18. ;P

Anyway, we did get to jump, but in the paddock instead. Murphy must have been disappointed about the change too, because he felt a bit sluggish through much of the lesson. This, of course, gave me another opportunity to practice being a) decisive in my riding from the start but b) not too over-active and pushy. Ulrika tried to make sure I worked on getting longer strides from Murphy rather than a higher frequency of strides, which just leaves the poor uncoordinated fellow all tangled up in his own legs. I also had to work a bit on my lower legs, which kept slipping back when asking for more engagement while cantering. That, of course, tipped my upper body forward, completely counter-acting that I was trying to raise his head up a bit and then ride him forward into that more upwards and open form.

The actual jumping went fairly well, though coming in a a trot always makes my timing suck. It wasn’t until the end, though, that Murphy really got into things and gave me something to work with. But then it felt quite good, and he seemed rather pleased too. It was also fun watching Hedvig jump; despite being a sturdy, short-legged draft horse, she tucks her legs in lightning fast when jumping. Very good technique from her, overall.

Since there won’t be much in the way of shows for a good while, I am going to try to improve my reporting from other activities in Ringo’s life. Given that its so far been next to non-existent, improving it a little bit shouldn’t be so hard. ;)

Today we finally got around to doing some proper tracking for the first time in a good while. In the past, we’ve stuck almost entirely to letting Ringo look for various toys, but now we got some proper wooden markers. We also fixed up some clothespins with ribbons on so we’d know where we had gone, and we put down two tracks. One straight line with one of the markers at the end, and one angled line with one marker before and one marker after the bend.

A little mishap led to Ringo running back and grabbing one of the markers from the second track right off, but at least he grabbed it and came running with it. Then we went off picking mushrooms—or, well, looking for mushrooms, anyway—and returned about an hour and a half later. Ringo was a bit stressed and not very focused, but even so he found the second marker on the track that was supposed to have two (but where he had already nabbed one) quite easily. The best part was that he grabbed it right off, without any prompting from me. Looks like teaching him how to indicate the markers won’t be too hard.

The second track he picked up well on his own, and followed fairly well. He also went right for the marker as he found it, though didn’t pick it up right off. But he marked it clearly, and took it as soon as he was asked to. Overall, I am quite pleased, since its been a while. Someone who knew what they were doing could easily get him ready to compete ... of course, I don’t. ;) But we’ll try to work in a more focused way on both the tracking and obedience this fall.

Not much to report from this weeks lesson, since it was theory time. It was intended as a preparatory lesson for a later theory, which will be turned into a sort of clinic with our instructors riding various horses. I think we ended up a bit off-topic, though. We’re a rather chatty bunch.

I had a pretty excellent ride on Murphy yesterday. I was determined to be decisive from the start, and he seemed to be pretty happy to go along with that. I also tried to keep in mind my shoulders, but I think they kept coming forward a bit much.

We spent most of the lesson riding 10-meter circles, first at a walk and then mixing walk and trot and canter. Murphy definitely likes to throw out his shoulder in circles, but I managed to focus fairly well on controlling his outside. I probably fiddled a bit too much with my hands to get the inside soft, though he’s not really a horse that is bothered by it. Still, a bad habit.

Once we started mixing in some trot, Ulrika (the instructor) felt that I wasn’t asking him to be quick enough with the transitions and that I was instead asking him to lengthen once at the trot. Given that his coordination is so bad, he tends to just fall apart if he lengthens too much when he’s not quite ready. So better to work on getting him to react more quickly, and that will help him focus on his coordination and also get more energy into the trot. What she did like was my seat, which she again felt was steadier and more confident, and I also kept it the same through the transitions.

Mixing in a bit of canter was a little harder, but towards the end I did ask him twice for a 10-meter circle at a canter, and he almost managed the second time, so he was definitely nicely warmed up by then. Which he also demonstrated as we finished up with some rising trot and he gave me some nicely balanced trot, engaged at the back and soft in the front. And he definitely looked happy when we finished.

Last Sunday was the Swedish Championships for Boxers, which we attended with Ringo, for the third year in a row. Fortunately, it was close to where we live this time around, just an hour away instead of four, so the fact that the show didn’t turn out so well didn’t sting quite as much as it could have.

Going into it, we were prepared for a less than stellar result, as the judge was one that had given Ringo just a 2 for quality at a previous show. But that was when he was a junior, and he did not show well at all, so we had thought that might have accounted for some of the evaluation. But, no. He showed very well this time, giving the judge a good chance to look him over, and all that resulted in was another 2 and a longer description of all his faults according to the judge:

Three years old, medium size. A bit flat in skull, not fullfilled enough under eyes, too much developed jaws, the ears are not well carried. Short neck, not dry enough. Needs more angular in front, a bit loose in elbows, chest is not deep enough, could have better topline. A bit feminine. Correct croup and tailset. Good mover. Needs better expression.

Some of those things were clearly due to the judge preferring quite massive male boxers. His winner was very muscular and deep-chested—too much so for my taste, really. Though taken with the previous show, I can’t help but worry a little bit that his head is coming out a little worse with age. But oh well, its just a show, and if we could get him into the working dogs class I think he’d be quite competitive all considered. That’s no small feat, though, with his habit of getting stressed by everything.

And speaking of stress… It was incredibly windy at the show (but despite lots of foreboding dark clouds, we only got 5-10 minutes of light rain), and it blew all sense out of Ringo. He was wild and loud (a poor fellow standing behind us got barked at several times, I suspect for having a beard…), taking only short little naps. I really thought he’d be out of control in the ring, but he was excellent. Now, we if could only work on his escalating issues with other dogs, to improve those as much as his attention to me has improved…

As we always try do at the end of each spring semester and the start of each autumn semester, we exchanged the arena for a little trek in the nearby woods today. Of course, one of the horses half threw a shoe, so we made it a short version and got back to finish up with a few minutes of riding in the paddock. Murphy enjoyed the outdoors part quite a lot (the little pig tries to snatch up food even when he’s trotting, and ends up slapping branches in my face), and then promptly fell asleep once we got into the paddock. However, I wasn’t about to have any of that, and firmly told him to get working. Which he did, offering me some rather nice trot and some decent canter. I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next dressage lesson: its all well and good to warm the horse up properly, but most of the time I ask for way too little until too late into the lesson.

Well, my back is definitely telling me that the autumn semester at the riding school started this week, and that Tuesday’s lesson was the first for a few weeks for me. I am not quite sure how I managed to make those particular areas of my back so sore, however. Possibly I was tensing muscles I don’t normally use to compensate for my lower back being a bit week after a 12-hour car trip on Monday. But either way, its good to be back in the saddle.

For the first lesson, I was put on Fleur, and while we kept to fairly basic exercises we certainly didn’t laze about. Most of the lesson was spent focusing on maintaining a rhythm but shortening or lengthening strides. Fleur has a naturally steady rhythm, but not a lot of scope, though she actually moved quite well towards the end.

At the start, she went into bicycle mode for a bit, with her head up and her back down. She’s getting on in years, so I allowed her some time to warm up, and of course I ended up being a little slow to then start putting some demands on her once she was ready. As usual. But after a reminder from Ulrika to ask for quicker reactions from Fleur, she responded quite nicely.

I had some issues towards the end, when we were cantering and trotting and she got a little too eager. I always end up shortening her too much in those scenarios, and since I didn’t have my usual riding pants on, I was feeling like my seat was less steady than usual. That made me even more inclined to hold her back rather than ride her forward, as I ought to. But on the whole, I was pleased with how I worked through most of the issues. Ulrika thought my seat was pretty confident on the whole, so maybe the extra training during the summer has helped some. Though I need to keep working on getting my shoulders back without tensing and pulling myself up out of the saddle.

After two weeks of vacationing, with plenty of walks and visits to the beach, it was time to finish off our time up at my mother’s family home near Sundsvall (on the Baltic coast, pretty much right in the middle of Sweden length-wise) with a visit to this region’s boxer special. We had taken our vacation later than usual to be able to attend this show for once, since its generally one of the smaller breed-specific shows. We were also quite interested in seeing what the judge, a well-known Swedish boxer judge, would have to say about Ringo.

While the spring semester at the riding school ended two weeks ago, the group that I ride in had agreed on having a extra three-day course as past of the various summer courses and holiday camps offered at the stables. So, we were booked in to ride Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Of course, it turned into just Monday and Wednesday for me, since the Pet Shop Boys just had to schedule their first concert in Gothenburg for ages and ages for Tuesday.

Elio and I spent the evening at a Pet Shop Boys concert, and we had a fabulous time. I’ve been a fan since around West End Girls, and converting Elio to the fabulousness that is the Pet Shop Boys was a task I set out on very soon after he moved here. We’ve actually seen them once before together, when they played Liseberg after the release of the Release CD, but that wasn’t quite a proper concert. Before that, I also saw them during the Performance tour (1990 or 1991, I believe) when they played Scandinavium in Gothenburg. I had a ticket for the seated section then, however, so I was what felt like miles away from the stage. That’s pretty much the sum total of my previous concert-going experience.

We got to Eriksbergshallen a little bit before 18.30 tonight, and the line wasn’t too bad. They started letting people in after not too long, and after poking around the venue for a few minutes (for the all-important bathroom visit, and to refill our water bottles) we went over to the stage. There was a small crowd present already, but we managed to get good spots in the second row to the left. It was probably just before 19.00 at that time, so it ended up being about an hour of waiting (and sweating—it got very warm) before Neil & Chris got on stage.

It was well worth the waiting, though. Great show, all in all. Setlist was composed mainly of 80s songs (quite a few songs from Please and Actually) and songs from Yes, the most recent album. Behaviour and Very were also represented, though Release not at all and Fundamental only very slightly. In addition to their own songs they did a cover of Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, partially mixed together with Domino Dancing, with Neil dressed up in robes and a crown. Other than that stage costumes consisted of lots of different coats for Neil, a disco ball jacket for Chris and lots of boxes, including worn on the head by the four dancers now and then.

While there were some songs I would have loved to hear, I don’t think there were too many (if any) that I would have liked to switch out. I certainly enjoyed myself a lot, and I hope it won’t be as long of a wait as this time before we get to see them again.